


Following the water

by Luna_reclipse



Series: Even through time and space [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: M/M, all the dramatic words, poetry in prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 21:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_reclipse/pseuds/Luna_reclipse
Summary: Meeting Scorpius is like following the water. He's a constant line streaming towards the future. Scorpius doesn't seem unsure of anything, unless he wants you to think he's vulnerable, unless he's luring you in, unless he's pretending to be soft.Al follows the water.





	Following the water

**Author's Note:**

> I am indulging myself. It's a little tiring to write "in the moment" things that require movement and speech for almost all the things. So for this piece I was allowed to return to my roots.

**Following the water**

Meeting Scorpius is like following the water. He's a constant line streaming towards the future. Scorpius doesn't seem unsure of anything, unless he wants you to think he's vulnerable, unless he's luring you in, unless he's pretending to be soft.

That shining head of silver-gold hair stands out everywhere, drowning out the colors with its effervescence. Al follows it like he follows the sun, like he's fallen in the river and is just following the water.

The first time they meet, it's on the train to Hogwarts and Al is tricked. Scorpius looks at them with a tentative smile, like he's delicate, like you can break him and Al wants to protect him, claim him for his own. To cherish. To nurture.

Rose is so rude to him, but Scorpius just makes this sad wounded look. A brief glimpse of it meant to lure you in, and the resigned acceptance that it morphs into is meant to trap you. It's beautiful. Rose is too insensitive to feel it, but Al goes down like a rabbit in a snare. What's a cousin next to a siren.

Scorpius is blinding in his generosity, magnanimity. Even in Al's devastation at being yet again, the odd one out, the cuckoo in the warbler's nest, the Potter in Slytherin, the Slytherin in Potter skin, Scorpius calls to him and it pulls him out of his misery. He waves at Al like a tsunami, carrying him from his island of isolation and despair, into an ocean of dreams and strange new worlds. It's like following the water, following the lifeblood of the world, leading him into the unknown, into civilization.

When James comes to pull him back to his family, back to his past, back to the expectations and disappointments, he doesn't leave. He won't. But silly James tries to torch the vast forest that is Scorpius' heart, full of hidden places for Al to rest in, for Al to fall in love with, for all the good things to feed on, and Al burns the only bridge that was worth anything. He takes the fire from James and makes that last barrier alight. It brings him one step closer to the stream.

Because in return, Scorpius proposes to him, offers himself up in marriage and Al is stunned. To be able to own the water. That's something no one can do.

Al hates his full name, hates his short name, but when Scorpius says it, all the lengths are right. They were all meant for Scorpius anyway so no matter how he says it, none of them are wrong. But only for Scorpius.

Scorpius brings him into the sky when Al's very blood begs him stay, and it's wonderful. The sky with Scorpius is beautiful and empty of obstacles, full of possibilities. But the sky is only safe while Scorpius is there to be his sun, his water, his.

Rose comes to tie him down, to drag him back, to force Al away from Scorpius. Al loses control, he plummets and is plucked from death by his angel. Al offers his life in return, but Scorpius insists Al was already his anyway. What's a life debt from a slave to its master.

The only thing Al would change is Scorpius' response to his brother. That insufferable git somehow stirs in Scorpius, colors Al has yet to see. James makes Scorpius' golden glow an angry red, a self-loathing indigo. He constantly needles at Scorpius, building trenches at the edges, bleeding water away from the river. And Scorpius, sensitive and overflowing with goodness as he is, keeps allowing James to steal from what's his. Responding to theft with kindness and an indulgence frustrating to see. Has Scorpius already forgotten who was so eager to burn him to ashes?

But it's alright because Scorpius comes to Al to stem the bleeding, to cool the fire, to sooth the wounds. Every time he comes back from James an angry red, he loves that Al can turn him back into a blinding, healing glow. Every time Al cuts James' lingering bonds to them both, Scorpius glows a little brighter.

When his mother dies, Scorpius' raging inferno is an ember; his roaring river, a trickle of water. It fills Al with a sadness so complete it feels like Al's own mother has died. Scorpius fills the void inside himself with a little brother Al cannot compete with.

That child is Scorpius' own hypnotizing whirlpool. The little brother comes from nowhere, brings with him a slew of rumors, and walks directly away from the water. Scorpius storms and floods to try swamp the banks and follow him, but it's wrong. The rivers flows and you follow it, if you want to live. Who's ever heard of the water trying to follow a person.

Al has fallen in love with a succubus. Scorpius consumes all of his love and manages to yet inspire more.

His greatest regret is the insecurity in his heart. It leads him to abandon the flow, to try and follow an augury. The augury wants to devour him and Scorpius both, but mostly it uses him to get to the water. Because he's an idiot and he hasn't realized the river has managed to follow him.

If anyone could defy nature of course it would be Scorpius, because he isn't weak. He isn't delicate. He is a torrent, a tropical storm. He only pretends to submit, to meld his form beside Al, to let him appear the leader so that Al will sink further, be ensnared without hope of ever escaping the water.

And Al is grateful because he never wants to leave. He wants to sink into the river that is Scorpius, to become one with it.

Things human, animal, and inanimate come to change the flow of the water, to divert it from Al, but their attempts are futile because all Al needs to do is follow the water. They can try and pull Scorpius in however many directions they want, but Scorpius is immeasurable, his water source ever replenishing. Al has never met another person capable of such depth of forgiveness and love.

There could be a day when Scorpius' sun has gone too far from the horizon for Al to see. But if that happens. If all else fails. He'll just follow the water.


End file.
